1 Million Women - 1000 kg reached on personal goals

I'm not usually one for joining campaigns but the 1 Million Women campaign sparked my interest.

I believe I was attracted the fact that the campaign recognises the importance and power of women's decisions in the home, especially when all working towards a common goal.

So I joined, I set up my activity register and then I waited a few weeks before marking my progress on some of the activities.

I will admit that I chose some activities that I had already implemented around the house (like buying 10% green power, installing water saving shower heads and power saving light bulbs) but I didn't feel I should lose out because I had taken the steps earlier than the project came in!

So I haven't REALLY made sudden changes to my life in the last 3 weeks to save 1000kg of carbon emissions as per the info below.... but I have over the last few months AND I've set some new goals that I'm working towards due to the campaign.

Biggest Kitchen Table Audit - Electricity & Water

Water Usage
I've been pleasantly pleased at the figures on our water invoice lately but there are always more things I could do to reduce water use even further.

• Reduce the number of loads of washing done in a fortnight.
• Wash vegetables and fruit in a sink or bowl of water rather than running water.
• Consider ways to reuse cooking water that has only been used for boiling (perhaps use this for garden watering?)

Electricity Usage
Our electricity bill, on the other hand, has gone from bad to worse. Over Summer Rhys used the air conditioner in our bedroom almost non-stop. This left us with a bill of $320. Since then I'd made a huge effort to turn off lights, and to turn off appliances at the wall, including the microwave, when not in use. So when we got our next bill I was horrified to find that our electricity usage hadn't gone down... it had actually risen so we were paying $430.

We are not entirely sure what to attribute the huge jump to.

It could be Rhys' heavy use of a bar heater that he said sucks energy like a leech or the addition of 3 computers to the household (ontop of our existing 2), all running 24-7. Or it could be that I've actually started cooking rather than just occasionally using the microwave. Our stove and oven run on electricity so with the amount of cooking and baking I've been doing compared to the previous lack of any cooking at all could be a contributing factor.

Ways that I could reduce the use of electricity in our house:

• Get a second powerboard with switches to use for the game consoles and TV so they're not always on standby.
• Hurry up and finish knitting a blanket for Rhys so he won't use the bar heater.
• Find a less power-hungry alternative to the bar heater for those times when it's too cold without some kind of heating source.
• Talk to Rhys' parents about getting insulation put into the house - a good time considering the government grants available.
• Try to convince Rhys to get rid of his 2nd computer which seems to serve no good purpose (though I'm sure he'll tell me there is one!)